Beer news in nyc

From January, 2011

Thursday I had my fourth Snow Day of the year (I capitalize these words because to me, a Snow Day is a holiday). Friday was supposed to be the 90th day of kindergarten, the halfway point, but now that’s been pushed off until Monday. Anyway, since I had finished my report cards already and didn’t have any schoolwork at home with me to do, I decided it would be a great day to cook up the Irish beef stew that Mike and I bought the supplies for over the weekend. After two miserable hours (ok, I’m whining/exaggerating a bit, but I…

Last weekend we made our way up to Bethel, NY for a relaxing trip away from the city. Of course our weekend included several delicious beers to enjoy while we worked on building the hottest fire we could in the fireplace. Our lineup included: Dogfishhead Bitches Brew Captain Lawrence St. Vincent’s Dubbel Anchor Porter Ommegang Three Philosophers A bit of the Anchor Porter even made it into some mushrooms we sauteed. The Captain Lawrence was my favorite of the bunch and I am now resolved to make a trip to Pleasantville in the near future. – Giancarlo Ever since watching…

I had a snow day on Wednesday, which kicked off a six day weekend for me, and what better way to start it than with several new beers. I started with Back in Black, which I had tried before. I really enjoyed the roasted flavors with the hop bitterness. Next up was Jai Alai IPA from Cigar City. While I enjoyed this IPA I think I will be trying their other offerings before returning to it. The last two were from Two Bros., Long Haul and Domaine DuPage. The Long Haul was described as a session ale aged in French…

Tuesday night was another installment in Bierkraft’s regular beer tastings. The unusual theme for the tasting was not a style or brewery, but beers with animals pictured on the labels. Here is the line up: Moorehouse Black Cat (cat) Left Hand Milk Stout (cow) Ballast Point Amber Ale (trout) Brewdog IPA (dog) De Dolle Ara Bier (parrot) The most interesting for me was the De Dolle. The dry hopping was distinct. The presentation pointed out that the technique is much more common in America than Belgium. The dry hopping yielded great hop bitterness and citrus flavors but left out the…

Thankfully, my office chose Secret Santa over Yankee Swap this year. It turns out that my Secret Santa had connections to the beer importing business and my gift ended up including a selection of beer along with beer glasses and a book on Ben Franklin (I also love history). As far as I’m concerned my gift couldn’t have been much better. – Giancarlo